Ghost Story- Bisham Abbey

This great Tudor house has a history featuring many striking figures of English history. The Knights Templar used the house, Queen Ann lived there, Princess Elisabeth was confined here, but the ghost of interest is Lady Elizabeth Hoby.
Lady Elizabeth was a meticulous and brilliant woman, but her son William was slow and unable to meet her standards. She beat him often in frustration, and after one beating he died from his injuries. Lady Elizabeth died soon afterward.
Her Ghost has been seen silently gliding across the hallway washing her hands in a basin, perhaps trying to clean her son’s blood from her hands. Strangely she is described as appearing like a photo negative, her skin black, and her dress white.

In 1840 her son Williams work books were found, full of sloppy writings and ink-spills, by several workmen updating the house.

The cruelty of her son’s death and her brilliant scholarly brain builds the ghost of Lady Elizabeth into a great villain. Her story has a lot potential for hidden magical lore or darker arts. Perhaps the religious treatises she wrote contains a rite which sent her to a different magical plain after she faked her death. Maybe the ghost is simply the shadow left behind by the ritual.

The copybooks found in the 1840’s is close enough to the Victoriana setting that the players could have to deal with the other book the workmen decided not to talk about: A necromantic Grimoire. Lady Elizabeth’s ghosts haunts the book, not the Abbey, so any player keeping the book will have to deal with her or worse accept her as a very strict teacher.